Hatrick's Advice to Obama's Secretary of Education

Monday, January 12, 2009

Arne Duncan, President-Elect Barack Obama's pick for secretary of education and the current Chicago public schools chief, will go before a Senate committee on Tuesday for his confirmation hearing.

To help him set priorities, Washington Post reporter Valerie Strauss asked folks in the education world to provide their best advice on key issues. Here is a response from Loudoun County Public Schools Superintendent Edgar B. Hatrick III:

I would advise doing everything possible to focus the department and its available funds on meeting the federal government's obligations for funding for special education.

I also hope that the new administration will focus on the needs of children who live in rural and urban poverty. I guess I'm suggesting that there be a return to the roots of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act at the federal level. The role of the federal government in public education is limited, and we cannot afford to continue to waste money and energies on the Department of Education's trying to police every public school system in America.

To hear what other metro-area educators and students would tell the prospective secretary of education, click here.

Tagged: education, Loudoun County Public Schools, schools, special education

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